


Unintended

by denise3



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25199557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/denise3/pseuds/denise3
Summary: The Doctor was trying to bring his temporary companion, Alicia, to a safe place where she could resume her life. But something unexpected happened. Now they are stranded in a strange new world, without a TARDIS. This fic is a starting point for my new collection, Reality Clashes.
Kudos: 1
Collections: Reality Clashes





	Unintended

The girl sped ahead, with the daring enthusiasm of youth. Her horrified guardian scrambled after her, already sensing the disaster that was about to happen.

It was but a brief moment in one of the lives of the Time Lord known as the Doctor, the last one of their kind. Alicia no longer had a family or place in the universe, so he'd taken her with him, hoping that Sarah Jane, his old companion, would be able to help her adjust to a new life in 21st century Earth. The girl had saved his life, after all. He couldn't have left her to die. But getting to their destination was proving problematic. After three unscheduled stops, they've again found themselves involved in an adventure, this time on Earth, in the 1980s.

Alicia cried with joy, in a race to reach the rogue alien scientist they were pursuing before it could escape. In their last adventure, she had finally found her confidence, and her initial trepidation and shyness were replaced with an urge to prove herself to her only friend. The Doctor had been delayed, and she'd grabbed the opportunity to show her worth as his companion. The little guy would have escaped if she hadn't rushed after it. As fast as the Doctor could run, he wouldn't be able to reach her before she got to where it was crouching, trying to activate the portal-thingy it had pilfered from its colleagues.

The Doctor cursed himself. Idiot, he was. They never listened. He should have known, she was only sixteen. Twice already she had done something stupid, hoping to save his life again. She'd been fascinated with him from the beginning, and given her age and culture, he had no idea how to deal with it. Finding other humans of her age hadn't helped. He shouted her name, hoping that she would listen this time, and forced himself to run even faster, knowing he'd pay for it later.

The alien finished whatever adjustments it was trying to make in the device's base, and raised its eyes, looking surprised at the approaching human. It clutched the bags it was carrying, and pressed a button. The translucent oval began to hum and shine, vibrating in its hands.

The Doctor knew there wouldn't be time enough to save her. He was almost reaching her arm, about to pull her back towards him, but they were already too close. He shouldn't have brought her. He'd promised himself he wouldn't get any more companions. He destroyed their lives, all of them. But he had been forced to bring her with him, and she'd never have stayed in the TARDIS by herself. Filled with desperation, he extended his hand and grabbed her arm.

The portal prototype emitted a shriek for a second, and then exploded. Untested and incomplete, it would never have worked as intended.

The alien disappeared, blasted to atoms. Alicia was blown backwards by the explosion, against the Doctor, who held her as they were thrown five meters back. They fell to the ground, the Doctor using his body to cushion her fall. But it was for nothing, because she had intercepted, with her body, a sharp fragment of the destroyed device. It ended up buried in her chest, neatly severing an artery, which was now bleeding her life away. She did save his life again, in the end.

Why did he think he'd escape from his destiny? Why did he hope that she'd survive for long enough that he could leave her, safe and sound, somewhere where she could live a new life? Why did he let her convince him to allow her to go with him for just one more adventure? Now she was dead, another of his companions, yet again. More guilt piled upon his already overburdened shoulders. He stood, and started carrying her body back to the TARDIS. She had no one else, so it was up to him to say goodbye, no matter how much he hated doing it.

Just a moment, in the Doctor's long life, extending centuries into the past, and even farther into the future. But then something unexpected happened.

The Universe * ** _blinked_** *.

And things were no longer the way they once were.

The Doctor, of course, felt it, the lurch in the back of his mind, reality teetering on the brink of a split, timelines diverging, his own timestream changing, old events no longer possible, while new possibilities were being opened...

And he felt as reality took a different path, bringing the universe into a new state. A shiver ran down his spine, a dreadful event he'd just escaped, but he had no time to linger on it. He immediately forgot all about it, because in front of him a big, swirling vortex had just been formed.

The device, a time/space travel prototype which the alien had been trying to modify to its own purposes, hadn't exploded as it in all probability should, nor did it work as intended. It malfunctioned instead, and the charge buildup resulted, together with a highly improbable set of circumstances, in the formation of an interdimensional rift, which quickly engulfed the alien fugitive and expanded towards the pursuing human, the Doctor's companion, Alicia.

Filled with desperation, the Doctor extended his hand and grabbed her arm. An instant later they were drawn into the vortex, tumbling together, the Doctor holding her close against the energies that were tugging them apart. The two time-travellers fell into the rift and out of their own universe, following the alien madman before them...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here it is, finally, my Reality Clashes collection of fics! I've been planning this for years, and I have a lot of material written already. This is an epic story that's very dear to me, and I'm happy to finally be able to share this with you, my reader!
> 
> So, I needed to start somewhere, and Unintended is it. I'll soon follow this with another fic, Flotsam, which will be posted in parallel to this, and an "overview fic" for the whole collection which will contain the abstracts and summaries for the fics, in plot order, as they're being written, avoiding spoilers whenever possible. Once Unintended is complete, there are a number of other fics that'll soon follow, since there are plenty written already, and even more drafted or plotted. I have literally dozens of story ideas, from one-shots to novel-sized, waiting for this collection.
> 
> In brief, Reality Clashes is a collection of stories loosely tied together. There is a main arc, and planned character development, but in most cases the stories can be read independently, with a prologue giving you any necessary background info.
> 
> This is a Doctor Who epic story, and I intend to keep to canon, as much as there can be a canon in a fictional world which is always rewriting and reinterpreting its own history. But I won't tie myself in knots trying to fit all obscure facts in the history of Doctor Who, especially of the Expanded Universe. Though if there's something that seems to contradict a piece of Doctor Who TV history, that'll generally be explained or justified, sooner or, possibly, later.
> 
> This Prologue gives you a brief overview of the starting point: the Universe is in serious trouble, and strange things are happening. One of these things has just affected the Doctor's own timeline, and the Tenth Doctor, not long after "The Next Doctor", experiences this shift. The Doctor's timeline has changed, there will be consequences, and their future incarnations will also feel these consequences. This is far from unprecedented, we have plenty of stories relating how the Doctor's timeline has been affected by others. For a clear example, you can have "The Two Doctors", with Two and Six. But I warn you, the plot will advance slowly. It'll be quite some time before the Doctor becomes aware of the scale of the threat. This is also far from unprecedented, we have the Eleventh Doctor's season with the cracks in time as an example. So we have a lot of time to go on adventures with Ten. Other Doctors will eventually become involved too. I won't avoid the hard questions, I'll try to do them justice, but things have changed, some for better, some for worse.
> 
> So, let's go on with this first step in our journey!


End file.
